1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a solid-state image pickup element for obtaining an image signal and an image pickup apparatus using the same and, more particularly, to a CMOS compatible XY address amplifier type solid-state image pickup element and an image pickup apparatus using the same.
2. Related Background Art
Conventional solid-state image pickup elements have a MOS structure made up of a conductor such as a metal capable of performing photoelectric conversion, an insulator such as an oxide, and a semiconductor, and are classified into an FET type and CCD type depending on the photocarrier moving method. Solid-state image pickup elements are used in various fields including a solar battery, image camera, copying machine, and facsimile apparatus, and are technically being increased in conversion efficiency and integration density. One of such solid-state image pickup elements is a CMOS process compatible sensor (to be referred to as a CMOS sensor hereinafter). Sensors of this type are proposed in documents, e.g., IEEE Transactions on Electron Device Vol. 41, pp. 452-453, 1994. Another CMOS sensor is disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 9-46596 in which the sensor is suitable for downsizing of pixels and addition/non-addition of a pixel signal can be arbitrarily switched.
In the prior art, downsizing cannot be effectively achieved unless the pitch of a vertical scanning circuit is also decreased along with pixel reduction.
Further, a scanning circuit for efficiently performing addition/non-addition switching operation has not satisfactorily been examined.